Website redesign in 2026: cost, process and keeping your rankings
This guide uses public price pages to show what a redesign costs in 2026. It also explains how to plan the work so you keep the Google rankings you already have.
In short
A website redesign costs from about $100 for a do-it-yourself template to $250,000 and more for a large corporate site. That range comes from eight public agency price pages, checked on 17 October 2026. Page templates, content, migration and integrations drive the price. A 301 redirect for every old URL protects your rankings.
What a website redesign is, and when it is worth it
A website redesign replaces the design, the structure and often the platform of an existing site, while it keeps the content, URLs and rankings that already work. It is worth it when your site is slow, hard for your team to edit, out of line with your brand, or unable to support new languages and markets.
A refresh is smaller, because it changes colours, fonts and images on the same templates and rarely touches your URLs. A redesign brings new page templates, navigation and content, often on a new platform, and that is the moment when a site can lose its Google rankings.
Before you start, write down what the current site already does well. Think of the pages that bring visitors from Google, the pages that lead to requests or sales, and the questions customers keep asking. A plan that keeps those strengths is easier to scope and to price.
How much does a website redesign cost in 2026?
Public price pages put a website redesign anywhere from about $100 for a do-it-yourself template to $250,000 and more for a large corporate site. For a small business site built by an agency, most of the pages we checked land between roughly $3,000 and $40,000. The size of the site and who builds it explain most of the gap.
On 17 October 2026 we read the public price pages of eight web agencies and studios. Google showed them in Germany for the English search 'how much does a website redesign cost', in the normal results or in the AI Overview. Most of them are based in the US. Seven quote US dollars and one quotes British pounds. We haven't converted the amounts, so use the table for the order of magnitude and expect quotes from European agencies to differ. None of these figures are Hault prices.
| Who does the work | Typical scope | Range on the public price pages |
|---|---|---|
| You, with a site builder or template | A small site with a new theme and the same content | $100 to $5,000, or £100 to £3,000 and more on the UK page |
| A freelancer | A small or mid-sized site | $500 to $15,000, or £500 to £3,000 on the UK page |
| A small agency or studio | A small business site with new templates and content | $1,000 to $40,000 |
| An agency, mid-sized site | More page templates, integrations and migrated content | $7,500 to $100,000 |
| An agency, large or corporate site | Many templates and complex integrations | $60,000 to $500,000 |
| An agency, online store | A product catalogue, checkout and integrations | $10,000 to $150,000 and more |
The ranges overlap, because one agency's small site is another agency's mid-sized project, but the pages agree on what makes a redesign more expensive.
What drives the price of a redesign
Most of the price of a redesign comes from six things. The first three are the number of unique page templates, new or rewritten content, and migrating old pages and URLs. The others are connections to your other systems, the number of languages, and whether the brand changes too. The number of different page types matters more than the total number of pages.
| Price factor | Why it moves the price | What to prepare before you ask for a proposal |
|---|---|---|
| Unique page templates | Each page type needs its own design and build. The public price pages put one extra template at $1,500 to $8,000. | A list of the page types you need, such as home, service, case study, article and contact |
| Content | Copywriting is often priced per page, at $100 to $300 on the pages we checked, and custom photography adds $3,000 to $15,000. | Which pages you keep, rewrite or remove |
| Migration and redirects | Pages, images and URLs have to move from the old platform, and every old URL needs a new destination. | An export of your current URLs and the pages that bring visitors from Google |
| Integrations | Connections to a CRM, a booking tool, an online store or accounting software add build and test time. | A list of the tools the site has to work with |
| Languages and markets | Each language version needs its own URLs, hreflang tags and content written for that market. | The markets that matter first, and who checks each language |
| Brand work | A new logo, typeface or colour palette has to exist before the site design can start. | Whether your current visual identity stays as it is |
When you have these answers ready, the proposals you get back are easier to compare, because every agency prices the same scope. Hault doesn't publish fixed prices for a redesign, because two sites of the same size can need very different work. Every project gets its own proposal. After a 30-minute intro call, you'll receive a proposal with the scope, timeline and price.
How a redesign works, step by step
A redesign should move from research to design to build, so decisions about content and URLs are made before anyone designs a page. At Hault the work runs through a kick-off and audit, a blueprint, a prototype, build and launch, and then a phase where we automate and improve. Our projects usually take 6 to 10 weeks.
In the kick-off and audit we look at your current site in detail. We check which pages rank, which pages lead to requests, how fast the site loads and how the content is organised. We also export every existing URL, because that list later becomes the redirect map. In the blueprint we decide the page types, the navigation and the content of each page, and we note which old URL goes where. The prototype is a clickable version of the key pages, so you can test the structure with real content before anything is built.
During build and launch we build the site on the chosen platform, add the content and test the redirects, and then the site goes live. After launch we check Search Console for errors and missing pages, fix what comes up, and look at what we can automate. Vergola shows how much a redesign can change. It went from a small WordPress site to a site of 52 pages, with a catalogue and a request form that puts photos straight into the owner's inbox.
The people at the kick-off are the people at the launch. If you only need the thinking, you can also choose strategy only, which covers positioning, an audit and a blueprint that your own team or another builder can work from.
How to keep your rankings during a website redesign
You keep your rankings by giving every old URL a clear new destination. Map each old URL to its closest new page and set up permanent 301 redirects on the server. Then update internal links and your sitemap, and submit the new sitemap in Search Console. Google says rankings can move for a while after a site move and then settle.
This is the advice in Google's own guide to site moves with URL changes (Google Search Central, last updated 20 August 2026). It recommends server-side permanent redirects, such as 301 or 308, and it says to keep them for as long as possible, generally at least one year. It also says to expect temporary changes in rankings during the move.
Watch for the usual mistakes. Old pages disappear without a redirect, or all old URLs point to the homepage. New pages drop the text that made the old page rank, or a test site stays blocked for search engines after launch. Start your redirect map with the URLs in your sitemap and the pages that bring visitors from Google in Search Console.
Every migration we do comes with a redirect map. For Birun Print & Sign, we built a new Shopify store, set up 301 redirects from the old URLs and added an English language version. The store has been live since 28 August 2026.
Choosing the platform for your new site
The right platform depends on who will edit the site and what it has to do. We choose per situation: Webflow for marketing teams that want to edit their own site, Shopify for commerce, and custom code for performance and scale. Moving from WordPress, Wix or Squarespace is fine with a redirect map.
Expert Air Services at Schiphol, for example, has an English-language Webflow site with a CMS and structured data (schema). For Private Label Specialist, our own brand, we built a custom Astro site with 234 pages in Dutch and English. It has a catalogue of 26 product groups, a quote basket and an SEO check that runs every time the site is built.
Planning for AI search in the new site
A redesign is the easiest moment to prepare for AI search, because templates are rebuilt anyway. Give every page a clear answer near the top, structured data (schema) that matches the visible text, real FAQs, and robots.txt rules that let search and AI crawlers in. Google says its AI Overviews need no extra files or markup beyond good SEO.
SEO is search engine optimisation, the work that gets your pages into Google's list of results. AEO and GEO are about being found and cited in AI answers, the summaries that ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews write for a question. Vergola's new site, for example, launched with SEO and AEO work and an llms.txt file, which gives AI tools a short summary of the site. Our guide to generative engine optimisation explains the AI side in more detail.
Which route fits your budget
Which route fits depends on what the site has to do for you. With a small budget and a simple site, the do-it-yourself route on a good template works, as long as you keep or redirect your old URLs. When the site brings in leads or sales and needs new structure, languages or integrations, an agency is the safer choice.
For the do-it-yourself route, export your current URLs before you change anything, and use the free Google Search Console to check for errors after launch. Our free SEO check shows where your current site stands in Google and in AI answers before you start.
If your site has to bring in leads in more than one market, request an intro call and tell us what the new site needs to do. Our website design page explains what a full delivery includes, from strategy and design to build and handover.
Frequently asked questions
How much to charge to redo a website?
Freelancers and agencies usually price a redo from the work involved: page templates, content, migration with redirects and integrations. On the eight public price pages we checked on 17 October 2026, freelancers charge about $500 to $15,000 and small agencies about $1,000 to $40,000, in US dollars. Price each part of the work separately, so your client can see what they pay for.
How do I redesign a website?
Start with an audit of what works now: the pages that rank, the pages that bring in requests and a full list of your current URLs. Then plan the page types, navigation and content in a blueprint, test a clickable prototype and build on the platform that fits. Launch with a 301 redirect for every old URL, and check Search Console for errors in the weeks after.
Can AI redesign my website?
AI tools can generate layouts, first drafts of copy and images, so they help with a quick concept or a very small site. They don't know which of your pages rank, which URLs need a redirect or what your customers ask. A person still has to plan the structure and check the result. We use AI tools for images and motion, always under human art direction.
How much does it cost to have a website redesigned?
Having an agency redesign a small business site costs roughly $3,000 to $40,000 on most of the eight public price pages we checked on 17 October 2026. A mid-sized site costs about $7,500 to $100,000. Most of those pages come from US agencies, so treat the figures as an order of magnitude. Hault doesn't publish fixed prices, and every project gets its own proposal after a 30-minute intro call.
How much does it cost to redesign a website?
Doing it yourself with a site builder or template costs about $100 to $5,000, according to the public price pages we checked, and a freelancer charges about $500 to $15,000. Large corporate redesigns run from about $60,000 to $500,000. What moves the price most is the number of unique page templates, new content, migration with redirects, integrations and the number of languages.
Talk through what this means for your business
Request an intro call, or first read how we can help you with this.